With a face cap over her head and sunglasses resting on the bridge of her nose, Aurora had successfully bypassed a news van and a small group of reporters that had set camp outside Mariano's beach house.
She hailed down a cab, gave the driver an address, and relaxed only when the press and the building were completely out of sight. It wasn't like she was famous or anything like that. Maximo had kept their relationship private, so she'd been a mystery to the media up until the funeral wake last night. Her appearance has been a hot topic ever since.
Aurora sighed, thinking back to the previous night's event was giving her a headache. Then there was the stunt she'd pulled this morning too. If Mariano had been just a little quieter when he'd called out for her earlier, he would've found her head buried amongst his personal belongings as she rummaged through them in search of any dirt on him. The meeting he had with her sister's kidnapper yesterday had thrown her off guard. They'd laughed and joked over drinks. That wasn't the vibe you had with someone who held your sister captive. Things weren't adding up.
After hours of tossing and turning away the better part of last night, she concluded that he was in on it. It made perfect sense. Mariano disliked his late father greatly, and Laura never really cared for anyone other than herself. Kidnapped or not, it wouldn't surprise Aurora if she intentionally decided to miss the funeral. Aurora figured that all she was going through could be an elaborate plan which Laura was in on. There was no evidence whatsoever that she had also been kidnapped, and her brother's behavior wasn't adding up.
"Am I being a bother, ma'am?" The driver asked as soon as they came to stop at a red light. All through the ride he had a bored expression and tried to make idle conversation about politics and the state of traffic.
He pinned her with a look through the rearview mirror. "You look like you would rather enjoy the ride in silence. If I was being a bother, I'm sorry."
Her gaze drifted to his in the mirror.
"It's fine," she replied, taking off the face cap and sunglasses.
"You look..." The driver hesitated. "Familiar. Have we met before or are you like... famous or something?"
Her chest tightened and heat flushed her neck as she reached for the cap and snapped it back on. "No, I'm not. I get that a lot though. That's my penthouse building right ahead. You can stop here." she took out some dollar bills.
"I can take you down there, it's no bother."
"No, it's fine." she counted his payment and got out of the vehicle.
The penthouse was nowhere in sight but moving through the busy city on foot helped clear her head a bit. She really hoped to find the disk at this next property. Maximo had purchased it about a year ago and although she'd been invited to visit only once, he'd given her a spare key which implied that she could visit at will. The plan was to rummage through everything in the penthouse, till she found that disk or useful information as to where it might be.
Her pace quickened. Time wasn't on her side.